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Cultivating Citizens with Confucian Cosmopolitanism: Defining the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Asian Context

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Cultivating Citizens with Confucian Cosmopolitanism: Defining the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Asian Context Front. Educ. China 2020, 15(4): 564–587 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11516-020-0027-3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Baoyan CHENG, Donghui ZHANG Cultivating Citizens with Confucian Cosmopolitanism: Defining the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Asian Context © Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2020 Abstract In contrast to the continued decline of liberal arts education in the US, there has been a revived interest in liberal arts education in Asian countries in recent years. Grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the central tenets of liberal arts education in the West, this paper looks into the struggles Asian countries face in their exploration of liberal arts education and provides a direction for Asian countries in their efforts to practice liberal arts education. This paper establishes the deep connections between humanistic approaches of the Confucian tradition and liberal arts education by pointing to a common ground for the education of humanity. Ultimately, the purpose of liberal arts education, in the East as well as in the West, should be the liberation of human beings from the constraints of ignorance, prejudice and traditional customs and through the cultivation of a cosmopolitan morality that emphasizes unity, solidarity and the fusion of humankind. Chinese universities should contemplate the purpose and value of higher education in the 21st century and tap into the rich resources of Confucianism in order to give its liberal arts education a “soul.” Keywords liberal arts education, Confucianism, cosmopolitanism, higher education, Asia/China Introduction As a distinct educational approach, liberal arts education seeks to provide college Baoyan CHENG College of Education, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA Donghui ZHANG ( ) School of Education, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China E-mail: [email protected] Defining the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Asian Context 565 students with a broad and solid knowledge foundation in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, so as to inspire them to be critical and independent thinkers and thus productive and responsible citizens (AAC&U, 2002). Such an educational philosophy, which originated in ancient Greece and later developed in Euro-America, is widely regarded as a Western model of higher education. However, it has also been observed that liberal arts education has been following something of a “declension narrative” in the West over the past two centuries (Kimball, 2017), in contrast to the thriving liberal arts education scene in Asian countries in recent years (Boyle, 2020). Based on Godwin’s (2017) analysis using the Global Liberal Education Inventory (GLEI), which is a database of liberal arts education initiatives, in 2013 there were 183 liberal arts education programs in 58 countries outside the US. Beyond North America, liberal arts education has the strongest presence in Asia, which accounts for 36% of liberal arts education programs. Seventy five percent of those Asian programs are concentrated in China, India, and Japan. During the past couple of decades, many Asian countries have started to strengthen and upgrade their higher education institutions by resorting to the liberal arts models of Western universities. Newly emerging liberal arts programs in Asia include Yuanpei College at Peking University (Beijing, China) in 2007, Po-Ya School at Tunghai University (Taichung, China) in 2008, Boya College at Sun Yat-sen University (Guangzhou, China) in 2008, the College of Liberal Studies at Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea) in 2009, S. H. Ho College at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong SAR, China) in 2010, Yale-NUS College at the National University of Singapore (Singapore) in 2011, and Xinya College at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) in 2014, to name only a few. While Asian countries seek to strengthen and upgrade their higher education institutions by turning to the liberal arts model of Western universities, they inevitably face challenges and struggles concerning how to indigenize liberal arts programs in their institutions. This article hopes to use China and Chinese universities as an illustrative case to examine the dilemmas and struggles that Asian universities face in their efforts to transplant liberal arts education. The purpose of the article is to illuminate an alternative model, or an East Asian/Confucian model, of liberal arts education through juxtaposing the 566 Baoyan CHENG, Donghui ZHANG Confucian tradition with the cosmopolitan ideal. On that basis, the prospect of designing a culturally responsive and viable liberal arts education guided by Confucian cosmopolitanism in Asian universities will be discussed and examined. The Evolution of Liberal Arts Education in Euro-America: The Ideal of Cosmopolitanism Liberal Arts Education and Cosmopolitanism Liberal arts education originated in ancient Greece and Rome. The word “liberal” has its origin in the Latin word liberalis, which traditionally means “suited for the freeborn gentleman” (Nussbaum, 1997, p. 30). “The freeborn gentlemen” who had access to education in ancient Greece and Rome were those with means and leisure time, who were thus able to spend time examining themselves and society. They could afford to neglect the profitable outcomes of learning and learn for learning’s sake alone. From this origin derived the second layer of a liberal arts education, which refers to an education that is free from utilitarian or pragmatic considerations. What distinguishes liberal knowledge/pursuits from other knowledge/pursuits is the absence of utility. When knowledge is pursued for its own sake and as an end in itself, it is considered “liberal.” Along with the free and enjoyable exploration of knowledge and truth, a third layer of meaning naturally follows, that is, a liberal arts education ultimately liberates people as it “helps individuals connect with the nature and the entire human race so that they feel liberated from loneliness and anxiety, and thus achieve meaning and happiness” (Cheng, 2017, p. 467). Combining the three layers of meanings, we can argue that the core value of liberal arts education is cosmopolitanism, which also originated from ancient Greece and is represented by a broad world outlook in how one relates to oneself, to others and to the world. As Puente (2015) states: “The underpinning of liberal education is the search for freedom” (p. 146), and the only way to gain this freedom is through obtaining a cosmopolitan view which is essential for developing an autonomous self who is objective and free from bias (Appiah, 2003), and “necessary for sociality and relationship” (Puente, 2015, p. 147). Originating in ancient Greek philosophy, cosmopolitanism represents a broad Defining the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education in the Asian Context 567 world outlook on how one relates to oneself, to others and to the world. When asked of what country he was a citizen, Socrates replied: “Of the world” (Montaigne as cited in Schattle, 2009, p. 4). As the French essayist Montaigne commented on Socrates: “His was a fuller and wider imagination; he embraced the whole world as his city, and extended his acquaintance, his society, and his affections to all mankind; unlike us who look only under our feet” (Montaigne as cited in Heater, 2004, p. 9). In other words, cosmopolitans claim allegiance to “the community of humankind, and the first principles of their practical thought must respect the equal worth of all members of that community” (Cohen, 1996, p. vii). Diogenes, the famous Cynic of the West who explicitly identified himself with cosmopolitanism, proclaimed himself a citizen of the world by rejecting tradition and local loyalty and focusing on the worth of reason and moral purpose in defining one’s humanity (Appiah, 2008), as the Cynical way of life he lived and advocated was cosmopolitan: “By living in accordance with nature and rejecting what is conventional, the Cynic sets an example of high-minded virtue for all other human beings” (Kleingeld & Brown, 2013). Following the lead of the Cynics, the Stoics in ancient Rome developed the image of the world citizen more fully arguing that we all live in two communities—the local community of our birth and the universal moral community (Nussbaum, 1997). They believed that being a good person required serving other human beings as best as they could. As the essence of Stoicism, cosmopolitanism for the Stoics means that a citizen of the world should obey the law of nature and that “the law of the world-city must take precedence over the law of the city-state” (Heater, 2004, p. 12). Influential Stoic thinkers include Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius the Emperor who thus explained cosmopolitan: “As long as I remember that I am part of such a whole [Universe],… I shall… direct every impulse of mine to the common interest” (as cited in Heater, 2000, p. 179). During the Enlightenment period, cosmopolitanism was one of the characteristic features of the age. The most influential cosmopolitan thinker was Immanuel Kant who advanced the ideal of “cosmopolitan law,” and he declared that “the highest purpose of Nature will be at last realized in the establishment of a universal Cosmo-Political Institution, in the bosom of which all the original capacities and endowments of the human species will be unfolded and developed” (as cited in Heater, 2004, p. 56). In other words, the earth belongs to 568 Baoyan CHENG, Donghui ZHANG all in common: Each human being is part of the same world, and thus has equal moral value no matter their ethnicity or nationality. Therefore, cosmopolitans “recognize in persons what is especially fundamental about them, most worthy of reverence and acknowledgement” (Nussbaum, 1997, p. 60). Starting from the late 18th century, nationalism gradually took precedence over cosmopolitanism with the consolidation of the modern state through movements such as the American and French revolutions. One of the reasons for the decline of the appeal of cosmopolitan ideas was the fact that nationalist movements which swept Europe during the 19th century required individuals to be committed citizens of a certain nation-state.
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